Production - Content - Research

It is probably a good sign that you are on to something when the Wall Street Journal has a front page article published on Oct. 6, 2007 examining short Lego animation "brick films" being created and posted to sites like YouTube.

The first one they highlighted was called "Cognizance" and it is a short 3 minute story of a hit man making a key decision as a song from Coldplay plays in the background.

In case you missed it, two mainstream media icons have released new podcast material: SESAME STREET and 60 Minutes. It is great to see these groups going after audiences in a way that is outside traditional methods.

Interesting article in the San Diego Union-Tribune today (Sat., 12/2/06) about the falling prices of High-Definition (HD) TVs. A Panasonic 42-inch plasma HD TV was selling for $1762 in September 2006 at Circuit City. By October 2006, the price was down to $1687, and then the day after Thanksgiving the same unit was on sale for $1199.

But as of yesterday, the same unit at Best Buy was $999, and Circuit City has announced that they would now beat every advertised price on TVs.

Online user-generated video provider GoFish Technologies has announced a new consolidated business operating naming strategy, finalized leadership appointments, a stock-for-stock merger, and $12 million in private placement stock and warrants financing.

GoFish reports having hundreds of millions of videos watched over the last two years, and is also producing and distributing their own original series called "America's Dream Date" (which after watching for a few minutes you might want to hurl like I did).

There is definitely some value in these online video sites ... or Google would not have purchased YouTube. But at some point, there can only be so many because frankly if the Internet has shown us anything is that we have a low attention span, and attention (ie. via ad revenue) is all that matters for those trying to make revenue.

The new consumer market focused Canon HV10 offers a host of great features in a small form-factor that could be idea for video podcasters, especially in situations where a larger camera unit is not ideal or not cost effective.